Last game of the season and it’s Southend at home who have sadly, already been relegated. We had them in the last game three years ago when also, they had been relegated and it was a good occasion with lots of decent banter between the fans and Saints winning 4-1 to clinch a playoff spot under the managerial genius of George Hic Burley Whisky please. We could have done with a really nice warm day to send everybody to SMS in a good mood but in contrast, the weather was cold, damp and generally shit.
Saints had done business with Southend during the season of course, in a transfer that rivalled the Ibrahimovic – Eto’o swap deal between Barcelona and Inter Milan where Eto’o plus £30 million went to Inter and Ibrahimovic went to Barca. In our case, Lee Barnard went to Saints for £200k and Matt Paterson went to Southend for a football, some cones, a book of stamps and an out of data Wagon Wheel.
Paterson was in the Southend line-up but Barnard wasn’t in ours due to an injury picked up last week. There were four chances to last week with Dan Harding coming in for Heather Mills, Radhi Jaidi coming in for Jose Fonte who was still on the toilet, Michail Antonio coming in for the ‘rested’ Lloyd James and some promising youngster called Lambert in the side in place of the aforementioned Barnard. Aaron Martin kept his place and there was a place on the bench for Alex Double-Barrel.
Again, the first half was pretty uneventful with neither keeper being tested. David Connolly was having a mare up front for us with nothing sticking and him being barged off the ball whenever it went near him. That said, the service up to him was dreadful with the midfield struggling to put anything together and it was all a bit one paced. Southend were trying to play but had nothing up front so the game was a kind of midfield mess.
There was a vaguely exciting moment on the 25 minute mark as the ball came out to Capn Hammond on the edge of the box but it sat up too high and despite getting the volley away well, it flew just over. Deano found himself free on the left a few minutes later as well but skewed his shot across the goal.
All in all it was a bit of a bore and half time couldn’t come soon enough. Half time was spent trying to listen in on the conversation that the Chuckle Brothers were having behind me. It was a vitally important as it centrered on whether they were going to renew their season tickets for next year. To my joy and delight…. They are renewing and I felt like rolling up my programme and making animal noises through it…. But I couldn’t because I didn’t have a programme and neither did anyone else, due to them being mysteriously withdrawn from sale before kick off. I went for a pee and a wander around the concourse and the reasons for the programme withdrawal that I heard were a) Pards took offence to something, b) Information about someone leaving was in there, c) printing problem, d) Page 7 fella spread of Nicola Cortese had the wrong vital statistics on it. Don’t you just know that The Echo or the Daily Mail will make a massive deal of this….
Michail Antonio failed to appear for the second half and was replaced by Papa Waigo so in effect, we waved goodbye to defending the right hand side. Saints nearly took the lead through the most unlikely of sources when football broke out on the pitch and we kept it on the ground for a few passes which allowed Otsemobor to get forward and lash in a shot which the keeper parried out.
Matt Paterson then found himself in on goal from our newly vacated right hand side having outpaced Jaidi and in front of 25,000 saints fans had the chance to prove why he should have been kept…. and he totally bollocksed it into the Northam. All he did was prove why we had to get some more banjos when he left as we now had forwards who could actually hit a cows arse with one. “That’s why were going down” chanted the Southend faithful in a great show of black humour, rivalled only by their “Que Sea Sera….we’re going to Shrews-bury” chant which made sporadic appearances throughout the game.
In a not entirely unsurprising development, Southend again built an attack on our right and the ball found itself with Frank Moussa who skipped inside a nothing challenge and curled a lovely shot into the top corner from 25 yards to give Southend the lead. Fair play to them as it was a bloody good goal and they’d been the better side. I bet the Southend fans knew what was coming next though and it took Saints all of two minutes to get level as Waigo took a shot corner to Puncheon who took on a defender and fired in a cross which Sir Rickie stooped to head home from all of four yards for League goal number 30 of the season.
Connolly was put out of his misery and replaced with Paul Wotton as Pards sought to add some guile and creativity to the proceedings. Whilst play was going on, a stern voice came over the tannoy instructing everyone not to make incursions onto the pitch. The last time I heard the word ‘incursions’ said in that tone of voice was on the news referring to Basra and Helmand Province. Five minutes went by and then the same announcement was repeated only this time it got shouted down as believe it or not, people were trying to watch the game.
Lallana then sparked into life and tricked his way down the left before feeding Puncheon whose shot was saved. Then Papa Waigo came up with one of those genius moments which will go in his ’10 Greatest Offsides’ end of season DVD. He was out on the right wing and looking across the line and still managed to be five yards offside. Pillock. Lallana had given him the ball and a few in the crowd were moaning at him but come on, he can’t have been expecting Papa to have got himself offside when he could see everything.
Saints were playing properly now and building up nicely but still finding the final ball an issue and Dan Harding took ownership of the problem and lashed a hopeless wrong footed Paterson of a shot miles wide from 30 yards out. Sub time and Alex Double-Barrel came on for Punch and immediately twisted his way towards goal from out on the left and had his shot well saved at the near post.
There was just 6 minutes to go as Lambert weaved (well, maybe he swayed a bit) into the area and was felled in slow motion by a clumsy tackle by M’Voto who had been a rock up to that point. After a request from Lallana to be allowed to take the penalty, (thankfully rejected) and a request from the crowd for Paul Wotton to take it (mercifully rejected), Sir Rickie blasted home, low to the keeper’s left for 2-1.
The game was done at this point but there was still time for Lallana to notch his 20th goal of the season as Harding picked him out with a nice reverse pass and Adam made no mistake as the keeper came out. He took the booking for removing his shirt, revealing the physique of a stick insect – the lad needs a few beers and some pies.
So, 3-1 and full time and it was time for a pitch incursion which would not have been any worse if they hadn’t made the stupid announcement. The few lads were cleared away and the players took a deserved lap of honour. We weren’t great today but we didn’t really have to be and just playing for 20 minutes was enough. In truth though, if Southend hadn’t scored it would probably have finished 0-0. Decent performance from Aaron Martin at the back and as long as he keeps improving, I wouldn't mind him playing a few games next season. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain looked decent when he came on as well and is another who could have an impact next year.
For me it’s been a very good season and we’ve finished 7th, 7 points behind Huddersfield in the last playoff position having of course, started on minus 10. we didn’t win for 10 games as the squad we started with was desperate but once we were up and running and strengthened in January we were arguably the best side in the League. We eill do very well next season as long as things are kept in place and there are no major upheavals. On that subject…..
In my opinion and entirely predictably, the one comment Nicola Cortese made about ‘results not being good enough’ which was at the time (January) entirely justified has played into the hands of poor journalists who have rehashed the story every slow news day. We are unquestionably getting better all the time so in my view, the speculation that Pards is leaving etc is a load of balls. Get used to it though because there’s going to be a lot of it over the summer as there is too many media outlets and they all have to come up with something sensational to make you read them as opposed to someone else. Me – I trust Markus, Nicola and Pards and until they speak, I don’t believe a word of it.
So - last game but not the last entry on the blog. I'll throw together an end of year summary and individual bits on the players and then we're into the World Cup which has nothing whatsoever to do with SFC but you never know, I might cover it for a laugh. Thanks for reading so far....
